I was dying because I was choosing to.
140 pounds lost in just over a year. No diet. No program. No gym. But that’s not the story. The 140 pounds is proof that a specific mechanism works everywhere — in your body, your money, your relationships, your organization.
Here’s how I discovered it, and why it matters for you.
I was choosing sepsis. Twice.
Close to 100 hospital visits in six years. Two multi-week stays for sepsis. The ER doctors knew me by name — not because I’m memorable, but because I was there constantly. Every system in my body was failing, and I had a simple explanation: bad luck, bad genetics, bad timing.
I wasn’t lying. I was choosing.
At 411 pounds, atrial fibrillation, high blood pressure, lymphedema, pre-diabetes, kidney dysfunction, chronic gout — this wasn’t a list of symptoms. This was the receipt of hundreds of small choices, compounded over decades. Every day I chose fast food over actual food. Every day I chose the couch over movement. Every day I chose the comfort of denial over the discomfort of truth.
And then the doctors told me I was dying, and I still didn’t change. Not even close. Sepsis twice. Hospital beds. Tubes. Doctors telling me the truth to my face. And the second I was released, I went back to choosing the same things that landed me there.
If you want to know how bad denial can get, that’s it. I chose sepsis twice before I was willing to look at what I was actually choosing.
The trigger wasn’t what you think.
It wasn’t a doctor. It wasn’t a moment of clarity. It was a stupid pink gorilla.
I’d reconnected with an old friend from junior high, Viki, and we’d gotten close — but only over the phone. I was in Florida at 411 pounds, actively hiding from every person I’d ever known. She was in New Jersey, and that distance was perfect for someone who’d mastered the art of being invisible.
When I ended up in the hospital again, I told her everything — including the part about wishing I’d just slip away. She wanted to come see me. I panicked. I could not let her see what I’d become. I invented every excuse. She backed off.
Then my birthday came. She tried again. I refused again. So instead, since she couldn’t visit, she sent the stupidest thing she could think of: a singing telegram. A guy in a full pink gorilla suit, to my office, to wish me happy birthday.
I took a photo with that gorilla to send back to her as thanks. And when I saw the picture, something broke.
I wasn’t ready to see myself. But that photo didn’t give me a choice.
I’d spent years looking in mirrors without actually seeing anything. I’d convinced myself I “didn’t look that bad.” That photo ended the lie in one shot.
But here’s what’s important: the photo didn’t lose the weight. It couldn’t. What it did was force me to stop lying to myself about what I was actually choosing — and the second I was willing to see that, small choices started being possible.
Small choices, compounded.
140 pounds lost isn’t a diet story. It’s a choice story. And it took about a year of small, smart choices, repeated over and over, until repeating them stopped being hard and started being who I am.
No diet. No program. No gym membership. Just: what am I choosing in this moment, and is it the choice I actually want to make?
Compound interest works exactly the same way in your body as it does in a bank account — invisible day to day, undeniable year to year. Stack enough small, smart choices on purpose, and the balance of your entire life changes.
This is the mechanism. And once you understand it works in one area, you can’t keep pretending it doesn’t work everywhere else.
Same mechanism. Different receipts.
The second I took responsibility for my body, I couldn’t keep pretending my finances were out of my control. The second I owned my eating choices, I had to own my relationship choices. The second I proved I could choose differently in one area, the lie that I was “stuck” everywhere else fell apart.
What happened over the next few years was remarkable, not because it was magical, but because it was mechanical. Small, smart choices, applied consistently, compound the same way everywhere.
Relationships: Viki was there when I was at my worst. Small, smart choices to show up, to be honest, to invest in what mattered. Now we’re building a life together.
Finances: Every dollar is a choice. Started looking at my money the same way I looked at my food — small, smart choices compounding into wealth instead of debt.
Career: Once I proved I could actually follow through on my word to myself, keeping commitments to clients, to opportunities, to excellence became the default, not the exception.
That’s what life looks like when you actually take responsibility for your choices. Not because I became a different person overnight. Because small, smart choices, repeated over and over, work the same way everywhere.
This is why I built this.
Every diet, every program, every system sells you the same lie: that one big decision, or the right plan, will do the choosing for you. It won’t. It can’t.
Stop Dieting. Start Choosing. exists because the real work isn’t one big moment. It’s small, smart choices, repeated, on purpose, compounded, until they’re not hard anymore.
And once you understand that mechanism in one area of your life, you see it everywhere.
If this works for me, it works for you.
You’re reading this as an individual, and you think this is about weight loss. It’s not. It’s about proving that choice, not circumstance, determines your receipts. Once you see that in your body, you can’t unsee it in your money, your relationships, your career.
Or you’re reading this as someone responsible for an organization, and you’re wondering: if this mechanism works in a person, what does it do in a team? In a culture? In results?
The answer is: exactly the same thing.
One person choosing differently changes the culture. A team choosing differently changes the results. That’s not motivation. That’s mechanics.
Your receipt is waiting.
Mine started in a hospital bed with sepsis. Yours might start in a different place entirely — a meeting where nothing changes, a scale you’ve stopped looking at, a bank account that tells a story you don’t want to see, a team that’s stuck because nobody’s actually choosing.
Either way, it’s not one big decision waiting to happen. It’s small, smart choices, repeated, on purpose, compounded, until they aren’t hard anymore.
The mechanism works. The question is: are you willing to choose?
GET THE BOOK BOOK YOUR RESET SPEAKING INQUIRIES